Film Reviews | www.jaredmobarak.com

REVIEW: The Punk Singer [2013]

2013/11/242013/11/27 Jared Mobarak

“It’s all about screaming what’s unspoken” When Kathleen Hanna is shown sitting at her home discussing her exit from fronting Le Tigre, she says, “I felt I had said everything I wanted to say”. It’s the kind of sentiment that makes you truly respect an artist, knowing they weren’t in it for the money or the fame. They used their art as a platform to share their ideals and try to change an injustice in the world. And while we quickly discover this reason was in fact a lie—The Punk…

REVIEW: The Hunger Games: Catching Fire [2013]

2013/11/232014/11/22 Jared Mobarak

“Remember who the real enemy is” The aspect author Suzanne Collins included in Catching Fire that was more or less absent in The Hunger Games can be summed up with the above quote. While Panem’s dystopia provided a common antagonist for the surviving twelve districts of a revolution their Capital won seventy-four years previous, the series’ first installment relied almost exclusively upon whether its heroine Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) would survive her adversaries in the titular games. Yes, the political unrest was at the constructed mythology’s back, but the ultimate…

REVIEW: Philomena [2013]

2013/11/192014/04/10 Jared Mobarak

“No one’s interested in Russian bloody history” The dreaded ‘human interest story’—a tale about naively ignorant folk read by naively ignorant folk. I paraphrase what wrongly disgraced journalist Martin Sixsmith (Steve Coogan) dryly quips when first told about the aging woman’s plight he would soon use to rejuvenate his career (at least where the film’s concerned considering he published The Lost Child of Philomena Lee eight years after his being ‘resigned’ from the BBC), but you get the point. Why would anyone who covered political scandals and wars want to…

REVIEW: The Poor and Hungry [2000]

2013/11/162013/11/20 Jared Mobarak

“People got parts. You just gotta get inside.” A guy like John Singleton doesn’t just finance independent films like Hustle & Flow without first understanding the talent it’s writer/director possesses to ensure the level of artistic success it may achieve. In the case of Craig Brewer, that calling card was a micro-budgeted work shot on Hi8 and D8 video in Memphis, TN entitled The Poor and Hungry. It’s a piece that foreshadows everything he has done since whether it be Hustle‘s sympathetically misunderstood lead, an ability to find the perfect…

REVIEW: Cold Turkey [2013]

2013/11/142014/05/19 Jared Mobarak

“It’s like a Jewish girl’s version of subtle” The lesson to be learned from Will Slocombe’s Cold Turkey is that you should never confide family secrets with the uncontrollable loose cannon of the bunch. Because no matter how many stupid things you’ve done, or how many times Dad saved your bacon by bailing out your incapacity to take responsibility for your actions, it’s the crazy psycho messenger who should get the blame. And while I initially meant that statement as sarcasm, I know now that at least the third part…

REVIEW: All Is Lost [2013]

2013/11/132013/11/14 Jared Mobarak

“I’m sorry” If writer/director J.C. Chandor‘s goal was to ensure he didn’t get pigeonholed into one type of cinematic style and/or genre, his sophomore effort All Is Lost surely does the job. Hot off a breakout Sundance debut with the expertly written ensemble piece Margin Call—earning an Oscar nomination for Best Screenplay—the rising star found himself face-to-face with festival founder Robert Redford to inquire about hiring the legend for his follow-up. It was to be an almost two-hour piece set entirely in the Indian Ocean as a solitary sailor battles…

REVIEW: 12 Years a Slave [2013]

2013/11/122014/04/10 Jared Mobarak

“Stay safely” A label such as hero has lost its meaning of late. So ubiquitous today, it’s been rendered empty by being placed upon men and women who—while just, compassionate, and selfless—don’t quite reach the level of endured suffering for the word to earn its full weight. With America’s history possessing so much cowardice and hate, even some of its greatest legends can’t shake the damning facts which prove they’re less than the pristine pillars our books would like to tell. Yet in our darkest time—an era of unforgivable crimes…

REVIEW: Enough Said [2013]

2013/11/112013/11/12 Jared Mobarak

“I like your paddles” While many are quick to label it as James Gandolfini‘s final cinematic role, Nicole Holofcener‘s Enough Said shouldn’t be dismissed as mere eulogy. The writer/director’s first foray into the studio world—albeit with indie shingle Fox Searchlight—it retains the voice and sensibility her fans have enjoyed over the past two decades regardless of any compromises she may have needed to acquiesce. A tale of middle-age and the struggles it brings to married couples, divorced bachelorettes, fathers of college-aged daughters, and career-minded sophisticates, perception becomes a driving force…

REVIEW: The Broken Circle Breakdown [2012]

2013/11/102013/11/11 Jared Mobarak

“Things have to change” If there is one universal constant in life, it’s the unavoidable fact that death changes us. It may not be irreversible or immediate, but feeling that loss along with the first-hand experience of our tragic mortality is something we simply can’t ignore. The love we had for the person now gone either grows in our memory or eats away through guilt or regret for being helpless to prevent his/her fate. We wish we could have gone in their place, wonder why we’re still here, and mourn…

REVIEW: Narco Cultura [2013]

2013/11/092013/11/20 Jared Mobarak

“We’re bloodthirsty, crazy, and we like to kill!” It’s truly stunning to see something so horrendously volatile as the Mexican narcotics trade glorified to the point of celebrity by naïve outsiders far removed from the front line assaults it cultivates. While the city of Juárez wasn’t necessarily “safe” back in 2006 with 300+ homicides, it became a fully-formed warzone afterwards with death counts growing to over 1000 in 2007 before climbing to 3,500+ in 2010—the same year El Paso, TX right across the border was America’s safest city with only…

REVIEW: Choosing Sides [2013]

2013/11/08 Jared Mobarak

“No, he hit some stone and water dribbled out” When a film chock-full of cutthroat verbal sparring and an amoral amount of profanity dealing with the perverse idea that one religion is somehow better than the next for no other reason than it being the character’s own affiliation has you thinking it could have gone even further in its satirical bent, you know it’s done something right. So comfortable in its use of offensive material to show two parents—a Jewish mother (Rachel Lynn Jackson) and a Catholic father (Timothy J.…